The Collection of The End

――TR.82.10.12――

Heishui Outpost.

"Tsk—we should have called Angela, too." Tykes smacked his mouth.

"If you let her see this kind of thing, you might wear some shoes." Renault shook his head.

At this time, "Renault's Rangers" had arrived at the Blackwater Outpost, and they also saw clearly what the so-called "sludge" was.

It was a gray-brown viscous fluid, which seemed to be a mixture of soil, rock, grass and wood fragments, and something like organic matter. It was still slowly spreading and flowing outward, and some bubbles appeared on the surface from time to time. "Boer" said.

Seeing this shape, no one can have the idea of ​​opening the helmet visor.

"Hey, Renault, I remembered your previous evaluation of Sarah Coffee," Tykes said with a smile, "hot mud."

"I decided to never drink coffee again," the scout Jimmy said in a disgusting tone. "Besides, this thing has spread a little bit more than when I saw it last time."

"If it will continue to spread and there is no way to stop it, this planet will soon be submerged," Renault squinted his eyes to observe the depths of the mud.

Although Renault’s power armor is equipped with a very advanced detection module, it cannot do anything about this “thing” that has never appeared before. It completely ignores the unusually obvious mud. When Renault must analyze this, the analysis module’s The conclusion is "a debris flow about to solidify".

Where does the mudslide look like this?

Renault was planning to step on the sludge to try its color by relying on the thick armor of the power armor, but stopped because of its next "action".

Of course, the sludge itself does not act, it just flows to the side of a tree normally and slowly.

Then, the tree disappeared.

It is not appropriate to say "disappear". To be precise, after the "sludge" has wrapped the roots of the tree, the whole tree begins to "fall" like stepping on a crypt trap, and the trunk and branches disappear almost instantly. , And the lush leaves floated on the surface of the "sludge" for a while before sinking slowly.

"...Attention all," Renault said solemnly: "In the next action, no one should touch this thing with their skin."

In the channel, one after another inhalation sounds came out.

"Is this thing alive?" Tykes was the first to react and fired three shots directly at the sludge in front of him.

Crackling-boom!

The rifle bullet enters the sea like a mud cow, and the last grenade thrown out directly "lifts" a large area of ​​sludge, so that the rangers can clearly see that it is as thick as a human calf, but in this way, the tree just now How it disappeared is even more unimaginable.

"What do you do now?" Tycus put away the gun, and said anxiously: "If the main building from here to the outpost is all this stuff, I think we'd better go back to the battleship and blow it up."

"And there is the same kind of bug hidden inside." Jimmy added.

"It doesn't have to be so troublesome," Renault slowly raised his gun, aiming at a target that had just been exposed by Tykes shooting randomly: "I saw you."

Da Da Da Da Da!

With Renault's shooting, a "sphere" that was denser and more viscous than ordinary sludge in the distance burst suddenly. Then, the silt on the ground began to evaporate and seep down at a speed visible to the naked eye, exposing a large area of ​​bare ground.

"Cool~" Tykes whistle: "Next, just find those ‘tumors’ to fight, right?"

Renault thought for a while and decided not to correct his statement: "...That's right, pay attention to cleaning up the silt. We will enter the outpost as soon as possible to confirm the situation. If nothing happens, just retreat and act!"

————

After finding the weakness of these "silt", Renault's rangers began to consciously remove those "tumors", and soon cleared a passage close to the Blackwater Outpost, but in order to prevent these "silt" from breaking their back The road, the cleanup operation was fanned out, and the rapid reaction force was also arranged to patrol back and forth in trucks to prevent insects from suddenly jumping out of the mud to attack the infantry.

It's just that the bugs seemed to have judged that Renault was incapable of the enemy through the previous encounters, and they didn't do anything until they reached the Blackwater Outpost.

"Ha, if the previous mayor was not a blind man, he would be an idiot. He didn't know who he was looking for." Looking at the "command center" in front of him, Tekes commented.

"Indeed." Renault nodded in agreement.

A general outpost, in addition to civilian facilities, can have a supply station and a bunker. It’s great to have a missile tower for air defense, but the scale of the building here is not so much an outpost as a military base. Conventional military facilities such as centers, barracks, supply depots, and armory are all available. Renault even saw the mechanical workshop and Xinggang under construction. If you leave them alone, you might be able to make up one after a while. The formed army comes.

But at this time, they are all "corroded" by the silt.

Compared with the silt that can only flow quietly from the periphery, the silt that is obviously in the center is much more flexible. It seems to be alive and clings to the exterior walls of various buildings, corroding them to rust. At the same time, he kept shrinking and wriggling, making the originally normal military base look like a group of horrible behemoths crouching.

No, it’s not like, Renault’s scanning module clearly reports that hundreds of "bugs" he encountered before are running back and forth in the corroded base, and some of them are not identical in appearance, but they are also terrifying. A large "worm" like a seahorse.

"Obviously..." Renault said, looking at the scene like a picture scroll of hell, "The Tyronn Federation spies used various means to get the mayor of settlement 47 to help them sneak in, and prepare to organize troops while mining construction. They raided us, but they didn't expect to dig out something they couldn't handle. The mayor decided to ask us for help after seeing the situation in a bad mood."

"This number..." Scout Jimmy trembled: "Shall we call for support first?"

"...It can only be so," Renault squinted at the bugs: "Perhaps you haven't noticed that when these bugs move on the'silt', they move significantly faster than on ordinary ground, and the silt ahead, I guess If we don’t destroy all the buildings that are “parasitic”, they will not retreat."

"[If you retreat now for help, then next time you come, their number may be ten times as many as now.]"

The sudden sound made everyone turn their guns instantly.

"[Don’t be nervous, if I were hostile, your commander’s head would have blossomed.]"

Following the voice, a slim and silver figure appeared above the truck coming from Renault.

"My name is Kerrigan, maybe you have heard of me from Nova?"